


waiting

by toskliviydays



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, note how all of my originshipping fics are in the same universe and narrative LMAO, still haven't finished ORAS don't judge me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 08:53:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3128594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toskliviydays/pseuds/toskliviydays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps he wasn’t as good at it as he thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	waiting

Wallace, though his energetic and sometimes demanding personality would have one think otherwise, was a rather patient man; he had to be, to be a trainer, and even more so to be a coordinator. Pokemon needed to be coaxed out of their fear, their reticence, had to not be forced out of their comfort zones but rather relaxed enough to allow that zone to be widened. Wallace knew that training was not about force, however brutal battles could honestly be. It was about trust, and care, and love.

And so when Steven withdrew in on himself after the Hoenn Catastrophe— hidden, he knew, like a geode, all the intricacies and beauties of his best friend encased in a thick wall of unassuming excuses and steadfast insecurities— Wallace figured he knew how to wait. Steven so often buried himself below miles of stone and paperwork, working with steadfast single mindedness that put half his father’s workforce to shame, but he always resurfaced after a time, hardly cognizant of just how long he’d removed himself from the world. It had been his way since childhood and Wallace, despite his concern, was used to it. This, though borne surely of mortality-driven introspection rather than passion for his craft or for meticulous detail, should be… no different.

Or so he’d hoped.

But months had passed with nary a word from Steven. They spoke, of course— through text, or when Wallace would drop by because his work put him close enough for a visit— but they never truly  _talked_. Steven had only blanket statements to offer, only distant words and assurances of his health, his work, his Pokemon— whatever anyone could possibly ask him. Yet his eyes… were so distant. It were as if Steven had never truly awoken when Celebi brought him back, as if the relief Wallace had felt, the tears he had shed, were incredibly premature. And that thought had something constricting in his throat, a pain seizing his chest, his fingers reaching out not with the delicate curve of a trained hand coaxing an animal out of its shell but with the heavy tension of desperation toward the suit-clad back bared to him. He felt— he’d nearly lost Steven so many, too many times, and he had been so helpless for all of them…

Before he quite recognized what he was doing, he’d walked forward to wrap his arms tightly around Steven’s middle, cutting off some lackluster spiel about soil density in the Orange Islands. Wallace realized in that moment that what he was doing was not exhibiting patience for a trained creature, was not keeping distance to allow Steven time to grow. Steven, for the first time, truly needed to be pulled out of the hole he’d dug for himself, and it could not be done with machinery or psychic Pokemon.

He pressed his mouth hard against Steven’s shoulder, breath leaving his nose with a choked sound of distress.

More than anything, Wallace needed to know that Steven was still there. He needed to know he had not been folded down and reshaped deep beneath the earth alongside the magma Groudon pulled back down with him.

“Wallace?”

“Please come back.”  
  
Perhaps he wasn’t as good at waiting as he thought.


End file.
